Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) is an optical remote sensing technology that may be utilized to acquire information on an environment. The acquired information may include the distances to, or other properties of, objects in the environment. A LIDAR device may use laser light in a range of wavelengths/frequencies, e.g., ultraviolet, visible, or infrared, to illuminate and acquire information on a variety of different types of objects, such as metallic and non-metallic items, geological formations, and even atmospheric elements.
In operation, a LIDAR device may be configured to illuminate a surrounding environment with light, detect light reflected off of objects within the environment, and determine object information based on the reflected light. In some environments, objects may be far away from the LIDAR device and thus the light must travel a long distance (both from the LIDAR to the object, and from the object back to the LIDAR). Because the light must travel a long distance, the reflected light is often significantly attenuated by the time it returns to the LIDAR device. Thus, a signal corresponding to a near object may be many times stronger than a signal corresponding to a far object.
Nonetheless, the sensing component of a LIDAR device is typically arranged to respond linearly to detected light. Such arrangements may be characterized by a small dynamic range; that is, the LIDAR device may only be capable of detective objects over small distances. Because the distance of objects in an environment, and thus the magnitude of signals received by the LIDAR device, may differ dramatically, however, such a small dynamic range is undesirable.